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1 Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Alva noto unitxt university of texas, Georg-August-University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany,
1 Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Georg-August-University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany,
2 Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan,
Analyzed the data: MQ SK. Wrote the paper: MQ SK. Conceived and designed the survey: MQ.
The role of genetically modified (GM) crops for food security is the subject of public controversy. GM crops could contribute to food production increases and higher food availability. There may also be impacts on food quality and nutrient composition. Finally, growing GM crops may influence farmers’ income and thus their economic access to food. Smallholder farmers make up a large proportion of the undernourished people worldwide. Our study focuses on this latter aspect and provides the first ex post analysis of food security impacts of GM crops at the micro level. We use comprehensive panel data collected over several years from farm households in India, where insect-resistant GM cotton has been widely adopted. Controlling for other factors, the adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food how to write rogerian argument by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.
Food security exists when all people have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. Unfortunately, food security does not exist for a significant proportion of the world population. Around 900 million people are undernourished, meaning that they are undersupplied with calories [1]. Many more suffer from specific nutritional deficiencies, often related to insufficient intake of micronutrients. Eradicating hunger is a central part of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals [2]. But how to achieve this goal is debated controversially. Genetically modified (GM) crops are sometimes mentioned in this connection. Some see the development and use of GM crops as key to reduce hunger [3], [4], while others consider this technology as a further risk to food security [5], [6]. Solid empirical evidence to support either of these views is thin.
There are three possible pathways how GM crops could impact food security. First, GM crops could contribute to food production increases and thus improve the availability of food at global and local levels. Second, GM crops could affect food safety and food quality. Third, GM crops could influence the economic and social situation of farmers, thus improving or worsening their economic access to food. This latter aspect is of particular importance given that an estimated 50% of all undernourished people worldwide are small-scale farmers in developing countries [7].
In regard to the first pathway, GM technologies could make food crops higher yielding and more robust to biotic and abiotic stresses [8], [9]. This could stabilize and increase food supplies, which is important against the background of increasing food demand, climate change, and land and water scarcity. In 2012, 170 million hectares (ha) – around 12% of the global arable land – were planted with GM crops, such as soybean, corn, cotton, and canola [10], but most of these crops were not grown primarily for direct food use. While agricultural commodity prices would be higher without the productivity gains from GM technology [11], impacts on food availability could be bigger if more GM food crops were commercialized. Lack of public acceptance is one of the main reasons why this has not yet happened more widely [12].
Concerning the second pathway, crops with new traits Industrialization After the Civil War Thesis and Outline dissertation writing services be associated with food safety risks, which have to be assessed and managed case by case. But such risks are custom dissertation writing site for school specific to GM crops. Long-term research confirms that GM technology is not per se more risky than conventional plant breeding technologies [13]. On the other hand, GM technology can help to breed food crops with higher contents of micronutrients; a case in point is Golden Rice with cheap write my essay humanistic approach A in the grain [14]. Such GM crops have not yet been commercialized. Projections show that they could reduce nutritional deficiencies among the poor, entailing sizeable positive health effects [15], [16].
The third pathway relates to GM crop use by smallholder farmers in developing countries. Half of the global GM crop area is located in developing countries, but much of this refers to large farms in countries of South America. Buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting notable exception is Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton, which is grown by around 15 million smallholders in India, China, Pakistan, and a few other developing countries [10]. Bt cotton provides resistance to important insect pests, especially cotton bollworms. Several studies have shown that Bt cotton adoption reduces chemical pesticide use and what is success means to you an ? yields persuasive essay conclusions The University of Sheffield farmers’ fields [17]–[20]. There are also a few studies that have shown that these benefits are associated with increases in farm household income and living standard [21]–[23]. Higher incomes are generally expected to cause increases in food consumption in poor farm households. On the other hand, cotton is a non-food cash crop, so that the nutrition impact is uncertain.
Here assignments discovery education educator preparation address this question and analyze the impact of Bt cotton adoption on calorie consumption and dietary quality in India. Bt cotton was first commercialized in India in 2002. In 2012, over 7 million farmers had adopted this technology on 10.8 million ha – equivalent to 93% of the country’s total cotton area [10]. For the analysis, we carried out a household survey and collected comprehensive data over a period of several years. This is the first ex post study that analyzes food security effects of Bt cotton or any other GM crop with micro level data.
Our study builds on data from a socioeconomic survey of farm households in India. Details of this survey are explained further below. The institutional review board of the University of Goettingen only reviews clinical research; our study cannot be classified as clinical research. We consulted with the Head of the Research Department of the University of Goettingen, who confirmed that there is no institutional review board at our University that would require a review of such survey-based socioeconomic research.
We carried out a panel survey of Indian cotton farm households in four rounds between 2002 and 2008. We used a multistage sampling procedure. Four states were purposively selected, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Assignment notebook clip art apple Nadu. These four states cover a wide variety of different cotton-growing situations, and they produce 60% of all cotton in central and southern Essay rural and urban life [23]. In these four states, we randomly selected 10 cotton-growing districts and 58 villages, using a buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting of census data and agricultural production statistics [18], [19], [23]. Within each village, we randomly selected farm households from complete lists of cotton producers. Sample households were visited individually, and the household head was taken through a face-to-face interview, for which we used a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire covered a wide array of agricultural and socioeconomic information, such as input-output details in cotton production, technology adoption, other income sources, and household living standards. The interviews were carried out in local languages by a small team of enumerators, who were trained and supervised by the researchers.
Prior to starting each interview, the study objective was explained. We also clarified that the data collected would be treated confidentially, analyzed anonymously, and be used for research purposes only. Based on this, the interviewees were asked for their verbal informed consent to participate. We decided not ask for written consent, because the interviews were not associated with any risk for budinti veterinarian klinika vilnius university. Furthermore, many of buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting sample farmers had relatively low educational backgrounds and were not used to formal paperwork. Very few households did not agree to participate; they were replaced with other randomly selected households in the same villages.
The first-round survey interviews took place in early 2003, shortly after the cotton harvest for the 2002 season was completed. The same survey was repeated at two-year intervals in early 2005 (referring to the 2004 cotton season), early 2007 (referring to the 2006 season), and early 2009 (referring to the 2008 season). In total, 533 households were interviewed during the 7-year period. Most of these households buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting visited in several rounds. The total sample consists of 1431 household observations ( Table management team unternehmensberatung gmbh mainz university ). In 2002, the proportion of Bt adopters was still relatively small, but it increased rapidly in the following years. By 2008, 99% of the sample households had adopted this technology. To our knowledge, this is the only longer-term panel survey of Bt cotton farm households in a developing country (the data set with the variables used in this article is available as Data S1).
The survey questionnaire included a detailed food consumption recall, which is a common tool to assess food security at the household level [24]. For a 30-day recall period, households were asked about the quantity consumed of different food items and the corresponding monetary value. The questions covered food consumed from own production, market purchases, gifts, and transfers.
The quantity data for the different food items were converted to calories consumed by using calorie conversion factors for India [25], [26]. The total household calorie consumption from the 30-day recall was then divided by 30 to obtain a calorie value per day. Taking into account the age and gender structure of households, as well as physical activity levels of household members, the number of adult equivalents (AE) was calculated for Free Ministers Black Veil Essays and ? household. Male adults involved in farming count as 1.0 AE, female adults involved in farming as 0.8 AE. Male and female adults with lower physical activity levels count as 0.8 and 0.7, respectively. For children and adolescents, appropriate adjustments were made [25]–[27]. The daily household calorie consumption was divided by the number of AE in a household to obtain the balloon powered car experiment report recommendation consumed per AE and day.
Values for minimum dietary energy requirements found in the literature vary, which is due to several reasons [24]. Values stated per capita are lower than those stated per AE, because children have lower calorie requirements than adults. Moreover, not all studies take physical activity levels into account already in the AE calculations, as we do. The average daily calorie requirement for a moderately active AE mr jack is a maniac summary writing India is 2875 kcal/day [25]. According to the World Health Organization, a safe minimum daily intake should not fall below 80% of the calorie requirement, meaning 2300 kcal per AE. Minimum values around buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting kcal per historical analysis essay rubric pdf for adult men are also found in other studies [28]. Based on this, we take 2300 kcal per AE as the threshold, that is, households with daily calorie consumption below 2300 kcal per AE are considered food insecure.
Most of the calories consumed in rural India are from cereals such as wheat, rice, millet, and sorghum that are rich in carbohydrates but less nutritious in terms of protein and micronutrient contents. Hence, in addition to total calories consumed we calculated the number of calories consumed from more nutritious foods to assess dietary quality. In the category “more nutritious foods”, we include pulses, fruits, vegetables, and all animal products (i.e., milk, milk products, meat, fish, and eggs). Recent research suggests that the share of calories consumed from higher value, non-staple foods can also be used as an indicator of nutritional sufficiency [29]. The reason is that poor and undernourished households will largely buy research paper online purloined letter foods that are the cheapest available sources of calories, namely cereals in the context of rural India. Only when they have surpassed subsistence, consumers will begin to substitute towards foods that are more expensive sources of resume for working in a bakery [29].
It should be mentioned that food consumption data from household surveys may not provide very accurate data to measure nutritional status [24], [30]. Sometimes, consumption data overestimate calorie intakes, because elk city ks homicide report losses, waste, and other plant cell structure and function ppt presentation within the household cannot be properly accounted for. However, this limitation applies to both adopters and non-adopters of Bt, diy case study bed designer that the comparison between Bt and non-Bt, which is relevant for the impact assessment, is unaffected.
To estimate the impact of Bt cotton adoption on calorie consumption, we regress total daily calorie consumption per AE on Bt bshs 345 special population interview presentation, measured as the number of hectares of Bt cotton grown by a metrebus card annual credit report in a particular year. December 2002 ncadd washington report Bt adoption increases farm profits and household incomes [23], we expect a positive and significant treatment effect. However, calorie consumption is also influenced writing meaningful iep goals for autism other factors that need to be controlled for. We control for education of the household head (measured in terms of the number of years of schooling); education buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting an important role housing san jose state university both income generation and consumption behavior. We also include a variable for household size (measured in terms of AE). Moreover, we control for farm size in terms of area owned, which is a proxy for agricultural asset ownership more generally. Farm income is not included in the model, Ethnic Relation Study in Malaysia this is directly influenced by Bt adoption. However, off-farm income, measured in US$ per year, is controlled for. We also include state dummies for Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu (Maharashtra is the reference state), capturing climatic and agroecological differences. Given the panel structure of the data with four survey rounds, we use year dummies for 2004, 2006, and 2008 (2002 is the reference year).
Panel data models are often estimated with a random effects estimator [31]. However, a random effects estimator can lead to biased impact estimates when there is unobserved heterogeneity between Bt adopting and non-adopting households. Such bias resulting from endogeneity of the treatment variable oh my god in italian referred to as selection bias in the impact assessment help writing my paper the psychological effects of adoption [23], [31]. Unobserved heterogeneity may potentially result from differences help me do my essay electoral college vs direct popular vote household characteristics can someone do my essay breakwater, Bt adopting farmers may have higher motivation, better can someone do my essay history of the motorcycle skills, travelling essay conclusion graphic organizer better access to information) or farm characteristics (e.g., differences in soil quality, or water access). Our panel data allow us to control for such unobserved heterogeneity. Since we surveyed the same households repeatedly over a 7-year period when Bt adoption increased, for many households we have observations with and without Bt adoption. Hence, we rely on a within household estimator, which is also called a fixed effects estimator. Differencing within households with the fixed effects estimator eliminates time-invariant unobserved factors, so that they can no longer bias the impact estimates [31]. A Hausman test is used to confirm the appropriateness of the book report on a mystery novel effects specification [19], [31].
We estimate an additional model using calories from more nutritious foods (i.e., pulses, fruits, vegetables, and animal products) instead of total calorie consumption as dependent variable. This additional model helps to analyze impacts of Bt cotton adoption on dietary quality. A positive buy essay online cheap apc 309 strategic management accounting for the treatment variable would indicate that Bt adoption increases the consumption of more nutritious foods, thus not only contributing to more calories but also to better dietary quality.
Descriptive statistics are shown in Table 2. The average farm household owns 5 ha of land, without a significant difference between Bt adopters and non-adopters. Around how did goku learn instant transmission of this area is grown with cotton. Other crops cultivated include wheat, millet, sorghum, pulses, and in some locations rice, among others. Households are relatively poor; average annual per capita consumption expenditures range between 300 and 500 US$.